The Affiliate Journey

One thing that causes a lot of affiliate marketers to stall and often become paralyzed in their marketing efforts is not knowing if what they’re doing is going to work or make them more money.

We’ve all been there. I call it analysis paralysis and it happens to all of us.

I always think back to a cheesy after school special type quote..

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take”

This is so true with Affiliate Marketing. We often times get so caught up in what if this or that, what if this doesn’t work, what if I don’t do this then this happens.

It’s a forever running & turning wheel that you need to jump the hell off of.

Instead of thinking this way here are 5 tips to keep you on track.

1.) Keep a Journal - Everything you’re doing, ideas you have and testing you do should all be noted in a journal, scribbler persona blog what ever your method. This is important because it gets things out of your head and onto paper so that you’re not carrying around a ton of ideas that can weigh you down.

Don’t believe me that this will work? Give it a shot, if you’re feeling stressed or over whelmed grab a blank piece of paper and do a brain dump. Write down all the personal and business related tasks and ideas floating around in your head.

Trust me once you have it all out there it’ll be a whole lot less weight on your shoulders and you’ll be able to go about your business and day with a much clearer mind. You’ll also be able to start crossing some of those things off as you deal, distribute and cope with what ever the particular item is.

2.) Reduce the Number of Projects You’re Working On - Beginner and sometimes seasoned affiliate marketers get caught up in the idea that more is better. Trust me it usually isn’t unless all of your projects/sites are targeting the same niche/market etc.

I try to keep the number of sites/projects I’m working on down to 5-6 how ever even this often seems like far too many when I’m trying to boost earnings for a particular site. If you feel over whelmed by the number of projects you currently have running try either

a.) Reducing the number you focus on right now and let the others be. They’ll still be there later on, just try to put them out of site out of mind.
b.) Consider selling a few of those sites/projects via Flippa or another forum where you can sell sites and then they’re really gone and you can get down to business with the ones you want to focus on.

3.) Have a Plan - When you sit down to work each morning, evening or when ever you do work have a plan for what it is you’re going to do.

Never just sit down at the computer and turn it on and say “OK let’s get something done”. This is a sure fire method to waste hours of forum browsing, email checking and facebook lurking. Trust me been there done that.

Take 10-15 minutes before you turn your computer on and note what it is you’re working on. If you don’t have a list of current projects you’re working on then maybe step back and take 30-60 minutes to plan out what your current projects are, the tasks and actions that have to happen for each of those projects and order them in terms of importance.

Next create an action, or task list from those projects. This way you can actually DO something rather then browse around aimlessly on the web.

For me I had a hard time embrassing this planning part of the business. I felt like if I wasn’t DOING something I wasn’t going to be improving my bottom line and making more money. How ever this is an important part of owning and running a business (And yes your affiliate marketing efforts are a business). Take time out to do this daily, weekly and monthly. It’ll be time well spent and the performance will show!

4.) Focus on Conversions (that’s where the money is) - For those that didn’t read yesterday’s post on conversions try not to get caught up in the whole idea of more traffic. Think in terms of conversion, that is where your income will sore!

Check out this post for more info on what I mean.

5.) Have Faith - I’m not necessarily telling you to go to church or pray, but you must have faith in yourself. Self confidence is important in this game. You need to know that you know what you’re doing. You’ve made some money doing this and have had successes now it’s time to grow those successes.

Don’t get caught up in the negative self talk. Sitting for a moment to clear your head and think about how you’ve been successful thus far is a great exercise to get your self back on track.

If you believe you can do it you can. Your self conscious mind will find a way!

So put these 5 steps into practice in your business today. They will help you feel calmer and more in control of your efforts. It’s important that you take time away from the computer to refocus often and keep yourself in line. You can grow your business but remember it doesn’t all happen in front of a computer screen.

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Stay tuned for my next post on how to really get those CONVERSIONS COOKING!!